THE AWARDS

About the Asia Arts Awards

For more than two decades, Asia Society Museum has been a pioneer in identifying and fostering avant-garde artists and engaging new audiences with their work. With this mission in mind, Asia Society inaugurated the Asia Arts Awards—A Gala Celebration honouring the Asia Arts Game Changers. This special event, now in its fifth year, will be held for the first time in New Delhi in February. Asia Arts Awards India is an opportunity to recognize and honour ground-breaking artists.

Asia as a continent has always had a rich cultural and artistic legacy, and the global focus on Asian contemporary art is on the rise. Asia Society India Centre and Asia Society Museum are instituting the first Asia Arts Awards India for contemporary artists living and working on the continent, to acknowledge and felicitate the work of three eminent artists who have brought a deeper understanding of the region to the people of Asia and beyond.

These artists have made an indelible mark on the development of modern and contemporary art in the region and deepened our understanding of the world through their artistic practices.
At the gala benefit dinner, which is on the eve of the opening of the India Art Fair, we expect to welcome a strong showing of more than 150 global artists, curators, collectors, arts professionals, Asia Society Trustees, and patrons for this special evening.

Asia Arts Vanguard Award

The Asia Arts Vanguard Award recognizes a senior visual artist who has served as a mentor and pioneer in his or her generation by exploring new subjects, forms, and mediums.

Asia Arts Future Awards

The Asia Arts Future Award is given to visual artists who are innovators in broadening the current understanding and perception of contemporary art in their country.

HONOREES

Abir Karmakar - Asia Arts Future Award

Born in 1977 in Siliguri, West Bengal, Abir Karmakar completed his Bachelor’s degree in Visual Art at Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata, in 2001, and then his Master’s degree in Fine Art at the Faculty of Fine Arts at Maharaja Sayajirao University, Baroda, in 2003. Karmakar is known for his casual and voyeuristic self-portraits, in which he places his naked body in intimate settings. His body language and the mysterious eye contact he makes with viewers are provocative, offering his interpretation of sexuality and the fluid nature of identity in contemporary contexts. Kamarkar’s solo shows include “Within The Walls,” “In The Old Fashioned Way,” “Interiors,” and “From My Photo Album.”

Krishen Khanna -Asia Arts Vanguard Award

Born in 1925, Khanna grew up in Lahore. He began studying art after he graduated from college in evening classes held at the Mayo School of Art. In 1947, Khanna’s family moved to Shimla as a result of the Partition of India and Pakistan, and Khanna was deeply affected by not only the change in his personal life, but also the socio-political chaos that reigned around him. His early works are reproductions of the scenes that were indelibly imprinted in his memory during this period. Most of Khanna’s work is figurative; he chose not to explore abstraction unlike most of his contemporaries.

teamLab - Asia Arts Future Award

Formed in 2001, teamLab is a collective, interdisciplinary creative group that brings together professionals from various fields of practice in the digital society: artists, programmers, engineers, CG animators, mathematicians, architects, web and print graphic designers, and editors. Referring to themselves as “Ultra-technologists,” their aim is to achieve a balance between art, science, technology, and creativity. teamLab believes that digital technology can expand art and that digital art can create new relationships among people.

Connect

Asia Society takes no institutional position on policy issues and has no affiliation with any government.
All views expressed in its publications and on its website are the sole responsibility of the author or authors.